gardening

The hubby took one look at me and said, “It looks like you’re ready for war.”

I hadn’t looked at myself all day in the mirror, so when I finally caught a glimpse I understood his comment.

I had dirt on every square inch of my face. In my hair. Down my arms. All over my legs. In between my toes. Under my nails. And in many other areas that I won’t even mention.

I did look fierce and ready for battle.

But the only battle I was fighting was against the weeds in my yard.

We have a big yard that we absolutely love because it allows us to stretch out and have some space of our own. The dog loves it because he’s got plenty of space to run, and of course pop up over the edge of the fence to say hi to the neighbors. But with that expansive yard comes the maintenance of keeping it looking great with regular mowing, wedding, gardening and pruning, and it all starts in the spring.

By mid-March of every year I’m ready to get outdoors and start pruning our yard back into it’s glory. After all, the sooner I can clean things up the quicker it turns green! We’ve already fertilized, aerated and turned on the sprinklers. But what I was really gearing up for was a beautiful weekend where I could dig my fingers into the dirt.

This past weekend I did just that. I started with the garden boxes and added much needed compost to get them pruned for the growing season. The lettuce is planted, along with three types of onions and carrots.

That was the easy part.

Next came the job of tackling the weeds and overgrown grass that had grown into the mulch that surrounds the entire perimeter of our back yard. After two days, I had filled the trash can, four trash bags and the wheel barrow with weeds and grass clumps.

Spring is always a welcome site as I know it’s time to work the garden soil prepping it for another growing season. This spring has been a bit different though. As I’m sitting here tonight, I’m listening to the rain bounce on the window outside. And soon, that rain will turn to snow, covering my pretty green lawn that I just saw a matter of hours ago. Here in Colorado, we’re on our fourth week in a row of snow showers. I love the moisture – which is so badly needed – but where was all of this white stuff in January?

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve been able to carve out a day or two of nice weather to prepare the yard and garden boxes. I cleaned up plants and trimmed shrubs, and we added 15 new bags of dirt to our raised boxes that settled throughout the winter. Fertilizer went down, the sprinkler system was started up and the lawn mower has made it’s return.

Over the weekend I made trips to two local greenhouses to fill my cart with cool-season vegetables to plant. Four varieties of onions, broccoli, asparagus, potatoes and three types of lettuce found their homes nestled into a warm bed of soil. Within a matter of weeks, I’ll fill the rest of the boxes with zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers and corn. Then I’ll step back and wait for them to bask in the Colorado sunshine (I know it’s coming!) and produce a bounty of fresh veggies.

Yep, I know spring is coming. We just have to wait for this latest snow to soak in.